How is Salem’s faction organized in Redux? I know that for example some rewrites create a grimm-worshipping cult to fix her lack of manpower but what is it like in Redux?
To be fair, one of Salem’s lieutenants in the Redux was an active Grimm-worshipper—Tyrian. He’s not an outlier, either.
Selectively inducting Grimm-worshippers to her ranks is one of her favorite recruitment tactics. Grimm-worshippers (or archotherolatrists, as they’re technically known) are predisposed to following Salem, because they venerate the creatures that she controls. Once Salem makes her existence known, they tend to immediately adjust their reverence to centralize around her instead. After all, if Grimm are worthy of veneration, then what of the woman who is their master?
It's one of the reasons why Ozark outlawed all forms of Grimm-worship after the Great War. It was his way of directly cutting her off from a steady supply of followers.
Salem’s inner circle—much like Ozma’s—tends to be pretty restricted to just a handful of supporters. The difference here is that Ozma chooses to limit the number of people he involves in their conflict. Salem, on the other hand, would love to increase the number of followers she has, but it’s a lot harder for her to do so. Sometimes she literally can’t, and there have been a few critical points over the millennia where Ozma actually managed to cull her inner circle and reduce it to zero. There’s a reason why she has such limited access to followers, but that’s spoiler-territory for now.
Her current roster is identical to the canon. Out of her four lieutenants, Hazel’s been in her service the longest, followed by Watts, then Tyrian, then Cinder. Cinder was the one who recruited Emerald and Mercury (both of them by serendipitous accident), and it was her idea to enlist Roman Torchwick’s gang and Adam Taurus’ cult. Leonardo Lionheart is also a member of her faction, but unlike the canon, he didn’t defect to her out of cowardice. His motives are rooted in nihilism and pragmatic resignation.
Although Salem can’t easily pad out her inner circle, she does have access to a resource that Ozma lacks: the Grimm. And this story treats the Grimm very differently from the canon.
In the Redux, there’s this thing called cognitive metamorphosis. It’s a form of psychobiological growth that senescent Grimm undergo once they’ve survived enough encounters with people. Their behavior is no longer exclusively dictated by a single-minded compulsion to kill. Grimm that successfully undergo this process become smarter, gaining self-preservation instincts, theory of mind, and other traits associated with advanced cognition.
There are several individual Grimm within Salem’s forces that have achieved this state. They functionally serve as generals within her army.
It’s been a very, very long time since Ozma has seen any of them.
How do you feel about the Branwen Tribe? Were you satisfied with their portrayal in canon, or will Redux make significant changes to them?
I am so happy you asked me this, anon, because I’ve been wanting to talk about this topic for a while.
The short answer to your questions, in order: meh, no, yes.
The long answer (with emphasis on long) boils down to a handful of factors:
Why do the tribes exist? This question can be answered from both a storytelling, meta, and worldbuilding perspective. Basically, it’s discerning the intentions/motives of the writers, either definitive or presumed.
Do the tribes add anything meaningful to the story? As in, can we quantify the impact that the tribe had on character arcs and plot development. If we were to remove the tribe from the story, would their absence noticeably affect how it’s told?
Are the tribes being used to their fullest extent? It’s worth pointing out that the tribes are, functionally, a writing tool, and therefore a resource at the writers’ disposal. Can we imagine different ways that the tribes could be interacting with the story, but aren’t? What reasons are preventing the writers from doing so?
Does the worldbuilding for the tribes justify their existence, or enrich the lore? As in, does it make sense for the tribe to exist within the context of the story. What sort of forces within the world—cultural, economic, political, natural, or otherwise—created the ideal conditions for bandit tribes to emerge?
Do the tribes complicate/contradict the story, or create noticeable plotholes/discrepancies in the worldbuilding? When we look at the tribes critically, we have to ask ourselves what about them does or doesn’t make sense. How the tribes operate, how characters interact with them, and such.
Before I go any further, I want to preface this post by saying that my thoughts were sort of everywhere. This will be less of a structured essay and more of a bulleted rant, in part because all of my grievances with the tribes (not just the Branwen) intersect and can’t be neatly compartmentalized.
And yes, tribes, as in plural. Because in case any of us forgot (and it’s forgivable that we would, since we only ever see one throughout the series), Mistral has at least a few of them running around.
“Wandering bandits are another threat. These groups of usually fairly-skilled fighters travel the lands, never settling in one place. They often prey on convoys sending goods between Kingdoms. That's not all. These raiders will often wait for a town to be at its weakest—maybe after a Grimm attack or while its fighters are out hunting, before finally moving in at night and striking.” | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 5: “Between Kingdoms.”
Now, the technical reason why we only see the Branwen Tribe is because of contrivance. Raven is, after all, Qrow’s sister, Yang’s biological mother, a former member of Ozpin’s inner circle, and the Spring Maiden. The production team isn’t going to waste time or money writing and animating other bandits, when Raven already fulfills several roles within the story.
The drawback here is that reducing their existence to a few throwaway lines, and omitting them from the story, creates a vacuum. And it doesn’t take long for questions to fill that newly-created space.
1. What exactly are the tribes?
For once, I swear, I’m not asking just to be pedantic. RWBY gave these wandering bandit factions a unique designation—a tribe. Not a gang, or mob, or ring, but a tribe. And that word has a very specific meaning:
tribe /tɹaɪb/ n. a socially, ethnically, or politically cohesive group of people; [1] a social group composed chiefly of numerous families, clans, or generations having a shared ancestry and language; [2] any aggregate of people united by ties of descent from a common ancestor, a community of customs and traditions, adherence to the same leaders, etc. [3]
It’s not some arbitrary label. Tribes have a commonality, something which links its members together into a distinct, recognizable entity. We know this because “tribe” isn’t used interchangeably with other criminal organizations. The Spiders aren’t a tribe. Roman Torchwick’s gang isn’t a tribe.
This word was chosen by the writers deliberately. Granted, the writers could have called them “the Branwen Tribe” in order to make them sound more threatening (which has its own not-so-great implications), but there’s no ignoring that this term is selectively applicable. In RWBY, tribes refer to a group of semi-nomadic reavers who inhabit Mistral.
That, coupled with Raven’s survival of the fittest creed, [4] sounds a lot like the Old Way practiced by the ironborn in A Song of Ice and Fire. If this is true, then it’s entirely possible that the tribes aren’t just a loose coalition of marauding criminals, but a distinct cultural and ethnic group.
That’s a massive revelation from a worldbuilding standpoint, one which holds up surprisingly well under RWBY’s framework.
Let’s keep using the ironborn as an example. In ASOIAF, the ironborn hail from a storm-battered archipelago known as the Iron Islands. The climate of the region has significantly influenced the geography, rendering the soil nutrient-poor, stony, and unsuitable for farming. The only resource that’s readily-accessible is fish. It makes logical sense that the Old Way (their reaving culture) emerged as an outgrowth of their dependence on piracy.
Mistral’s bandit tribes occupy a similar niche. Canonically, the tribes wander from place to place to avoid Grimm. A non-sedentary lifestyle makes agriculture difficult, and thus creates a predisposition for raiding towns and villages in order to survive. Give it a few generations, and it’s easy to see how this practice could have been integrated into the bedrock of their culture.
That, in turn, could lead to all sorts of worldbuilding and storytelling questions: Would certain legal sanctions or concessions have been granted in order to preserve their culture, under the assumption that the tribes represent a protected minority? Are there any tribes that voluntarily gave up aspects of their heritage so they could avoid being arrested? In which case, how would they have adapted to changes in their way of life? If the tribes collectively refused to relinquish their raiding culture, then did the Mistral government retaliate? Would all members of the tribes’ ethnic group be recognized as criminals on-sight? What traditions or customs are exclusive to the tribes? Do they practice their own religion, or speak a language separate from mainstream Mistrali? Do children born in the tribe undergo rites of passage, like going on their first raid, or killing someone for the first time? How would that sort of cultural immersion have influenced Qrow’s and Raven’s childhood? What if someone wanted to voluntarily leave the tribe, and eschew their way of life? Would they be ostracized? Would the tribe do something as drastic as put a bounty on them? How would a person who grew up in a culturally-isolated environment like theirs navigate society? Would it be similar to the trauma faced by ex-Mormons who were excommunicated?
Do you have to be born to parents in the tribe in order to be considered a member? Or do the tribes actively recruit from outside sources? Maybe it’s like in One Piece, where Nami was made a member of Arlong’s crew because she demonstrated a valuable skill (cartography). Or perhaps the tribes recruit survivors from their raids, similar to Davey Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean 2, when he invited the helmsman from the scuttled ship to join The Dutchman after the kraken attacked.
…You know, looking back on the examples I used, it might not be a coincidence that all of them are pirates.
Anyway, the issue here is that all of the worldbuilding I posited hinges on an assumption: that “tribe” actually means something in this context, instead of Rooster Teeth just throwing a dart at the dictionary and picking whichever word it landed on. Without any sort of elaboration, the bandit tribes are left rather vague, with Raven’s group being the sole representative.
All we’re left with is the canon.
And that’s where things start to break down.
2. The way the bandit tribes operate doesn’t work.
Did you know that the Kingdom of Mistral only has ten settlements?
No, seriously. Ten. As in, I can literally count to that number with both hands.
To give you an idea of what those settlements are like, I’ve gone ahead and categorized them.
Major industrial city: Argus, Kuchinashi, Wind Path, City of Mistral
Backwater podunk village connected by dirt roads: Higanbana, Shion, Unnamed Village 1 (V4.E1), Unnamed Village 2 (RWBY #3)
Gone, but not forgotten: Oniyuri, Kuroyuri
Of the ten places I listed, four are massive cities with standardized defense systems that can repel Grimm (and are more than capable of resisting bandits). The other two are derelict villages that were destroyed a long time ago.
This leaves us with four small villages that are susceptible to bandit raids.
Oh, wait, scratch that. Shion was destroyed by Raven as of the second episode of Volume 4. My bad.
That leaves us with three small villages that are susceptible to bandit raids.
Although bandits will attack supply convoys and travelers, destroying towns [5.1] seems to be their primary means of survival. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
The destruction of Shion. | Source: RWBY Wiki contributor user:ChishioKunrin.
But there’s a problem with this business model: it’s not sustainable. With villages falling as soon as they pop up, [6] and typically not lasting more than a year, [5.2] it doesn’t make sense for bandits to systematically wipe them out.
Especially when there are only three villages left.
Especially especially when there are multiple tribes in Mistral all competing for the exact same limited resource.
A more feasible and pragmatic solution would be for the bandit tribes to implement something like pizzo, the protection money that the Mafia extorts from local businesses. In exchange for “payment,” the businesses are “protected” by the Mafia. Think of it like paying your taxes, only instead of your taxes going toward schools and infrastructure, they go toward the Mafia not breaking your kneecaps.
Not only would a system like that be more viable long-term for the tribes, but it would be harder for the Mistrali government to track and put a stop to. After all, smoking rubble is a lot more obvious than, say, a nondescript guy walking into a fuel station/restaurant and collecting lien from the owner.
Just Rite. | Source: RWBY Wiki contributor user:ChishioKunrin.
Wouldn’t you agree?
3. Qrow should have changed his last name. (Bet you didn’t see this one coming.)
While we’re on the subject, I’d like to bring up this exchange:
Bartender: So, what brings you around these parts?
Yang: Thanks. And I'm, uh, looking for someone.
Bartender: Not too many people come out here. Too far from the Kingdoms. Only person worth notin' around here is…well, Ra—
Yang: Raven Branwen.
Her tribe—the Branwen Tribe—is known by name across Anima, despite the fact that they regularly pick up and move their camp. The bartender is terrified by the mere mention of them.
Enter Qrow, whose reputation not only precedes him, [7] [8] but whose legal name on his license is the same one used by an infamous gang of thieves and killers.
Seriously, how has this not backfired on him? I mean, for Christ’s sake, he was a teacher at a school. You don’t think there weren’t students whose parents read his name on the faculty list and didn’t immediately have heart palpitations? Or, like, bars in Mistral that caught a glimpse of his license and didn’t immediately call the cops?
What about instances where Qrow sees a group of people in danger, so he jumps in and whips out his license to reassure them that he’s there to help. He wouldn’t be able to get the first three words out before the people around him started panicking because oh my god it’s a bandit from the Branwen Tribe we’re going to die.
Or what about victims that might have survived encounters with Raven, and forever bear a grudge against her? Branwen is undoubtedly a hated name in Mistral, and could be a sore subject for someone who overhears it. Why would Qrow risk his safety and invite unnecessary conflicts by hanging onto a name that’s a relic of his past?
For that matter, it’s a relic of his past. Qrow defected from the tribe to serve Ozpin, and do some good in the world by becoming a Huntsman. Why would he want to continue identifying with the name that represents a source of trauma and pain? I find it hard to believe that Ozpin, if asked, couldn’t have used his status as headmaster and pulled some strings to get his surname changed.
There’s so much more I could say about the tribes, and how I think they’ve been underutilized (especially by Cinder et al) but this post is getting long. Suffice to say, the tribes in the Redux are getting overhauled big time—their culture, their history, their relationship with other criminal factions, how many tribes there are, how the Mistrali government deals with them, how Salem uses them to meet her goals, and so on.
[4] Volume 4, Episode 4: “Family.” Raven: “The weak die, the strong live. Those are the rules.”
[5] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 5: “Between Kingdoms.”
[5.1] Qrow: “This is also why bandits never stay in the towns they conquer.”
[5.2] Qrow: “If you don't have at least a few of those, then the chances of a town lasting more than a year isn't great.”
[6] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 1: “Vale.” Qrow: “Welcome to the world of Remnant. Not the best place to live, but depending on where you're staying, it can get a little easier. You've got towns and villages that pop up as fast as they fall.”
[7] Volume 3, Episode 4: “Lessons Learned.” Qrow: “Hey, I know everybody to some extent. [Team STRQ was] pretty well known back in the day.”
[8] Volume 4, Episode 7: “Punished.” Tyrian: “As I live and breathe, Qrow Branwen. A true Huntsman has entered the fray!”
